Managing corporate data centers has never been more of a challenge than it is today. The use of high density servers and network equipment, which require more electrical power and cooling per rack, make the planning and deployment of servers far harder than before. Once the equipment is deployed, keeping track of it to end-of-life is becoming critical and ensuring that servers can be immediately found when problems occur is vital. Over 60% of data center managers we contacted said it can take a least 3 hours to find a server when it goes down, and over 80% of managers said they have found servers in their data centers they did not know existed. Almost without exception corporate ‘green’ initiatives are driving data center decisions as well; often based on limited information.

Corporations really are demanding “more-from-less” from their data center teams. To be able to achieve these demands, perfect physical records are mandatory. In the end, if decisions are based on inaccurate data, then the consequences of those decisions can lead to unacceptable service outages. The use of Excel spreadsheets and other simple databases just can’t provide the level of information required. With CableSolve you get the best of portable, client, web and server components in a complete solution to the problems of physical layer data center management. With demands on data centers showing no signs of slowing down and the issues of IT infrastructure management increasing, it’s clear that the centralized management of the physical layers is required.

Core to the solution is the premise that data based back at the desktop or even available on a web client is of limited help in ensuring records are always up-to-date. What is needed is full access to all records where they are needed most: where the change is being made. To achieve this a unique offline handheld portable application, running on MS Windows Mobile devices with bar-code scanner. The handheld application provides create, read and update capabilities to all of the data that exists about the infrastructure. This means all changes are recorded as they are made, in ‘real-time’. The portable handheld has full access to plans, change-orders, and audit information to ensure that whatever work is being undertaken can be recorded there and then. This data is then synchronized via cradle or Wi-Fi/LAN.

It is easy to consolidate multiple information sources such as asset, location, power, heat, ownership, support, connectivity, plan, history and configuration information into one centralized database that multiple business teams can securely access. Data center groups including facilities and data center managers, server and SAN administrators, network administrators, support desk and audit and compliance teams can all use the data in CableSolve to assist with their jobs while keeping the information up-to-date.

The change-management module ensures work can be planned and documented on the desktop and presented to staff on the handheld for execution. After completing changes on the handheld, a simple synchronization means that work completed is visible to all users.

Of course, information captured physically is not good enough for complete physical management, even with the portable handheld. Electronic data from equipment such as UPS, power rails, servers and switches needs to be gathered, stored and used to compliment the physical data. Flexible discovery is made possible with a complete VB and C# scripting module for both external querying of SNMP/WMI based devices and internal scripting. Information captured from power devices, servers, switches, and other systems can be displayed in real-time in device attribute data and floor plan views and stored for later historical reporting.

There is a rich custom reporting engine built into the application. Once a report is produced it can be scheduled for use on a dashboard or export to another system (via XML or CSV) or e-mailed. The Web services API allows external interfacing to and from any system and can be used to add, update and delete any information in the database. Information can be displayed to users in multiple formats including tree views, floor plans and rack views of the infrastructure. The user interface is consistent between the desktop and the portable device so staff can switch between devices easily without having to relearn the interface. Configuration is very powerful with unlimited templates, attributes and icons possible.

Configured can be set to meet the exact requirements of your site. Setting up is easy with the ability to import your existing records and then using the handheld to audit the data and bring it up-to-date.

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